NEAR EASTERN ARCHAEOLOGY AND ART HISTORY

L-OR/05 - 6 CFU - 2° Semester

Teaching Staff

ELEONORA PAPPALARDO


Learning Objectives

The study of ancient Near Eastern societies aims at developing a better knowledge of how to interpret ancient material culture for the students interested in following an academic path in the field of archaeology. Moreover, the subjects investigated during the course will be useful for a collaborating with national and international companies devoted to excavate, manage, and promote the cultural heritage in Middle Eastern countries (e.g., UNESCO; World Bank, European Community, ICCROM, ICOM, Getty Foundation, World Monument Fund, etc.). At the end of the course, the student will be able to recognize objects and architectural plans of the societies that inhabited the Near East from Prehistoric periods until the age of the empires during the first millennium BC.



Detailed Course Content

Archeology and Art History of the Near East will be dedicated to the study of the material culture of the ancient societies that have inhabited a large geographical area limited by the Mediterranean basin, to the west, and by the Indus valley, to the east, dating from prehistoric periods until the arrival of Alexander the Great in the region (330 BC). Some of the topics investigated during the course are as follows: the evolution of social organization (from hunters- gatherers societies to the Mesopotamian Empires); the transformation of administrative techniques (from stamp seals and tokens of the Neolithic period to the cylinder seals and the cuneiform clay tablets of ancient Mesopotamia), the changes in religious practices and beliefs (from the first ceremonial architecture of the aceramic Neolithic period at Gobekli Tepe to the Mesopotamian temples of the fourth-to-first millennia BC). In particular, the latest part of the course will be dedicated to investigating the funerary customs of ancient near eastern societies between the third and first millennia BC.



Textbook Information

Nadali D. e Polcaro A. (2015) Archeologia della Mesopotamia antica. Carocci, Roma. (422 pagine)

Laneri N. (2011) Archeologia della morte. Carocci, Roma. (142 pagine)




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